Friday, May 25, 2012

27 - 4 = Your pretend tourney squad

No great surprises, really. Those who must now leave the USMNT MasterCoach kitchen are Juan Agudelo, Alfredo Morales Graham Zusi and the still-injured Daniel Williams (I warned ya he wouldn't be ready for this).

With that unpleasantness out of the way, let's make sure we're stocked up on bug juice as the USMNT shifts to Jacksonville for tomorrow's friendly with Scotland and catch the first episode of Carlos Bocanegra, Glasgow Burrito Hunter...

well, knowing this makes the lineup a little easier to figure. so we got the back four, and that must probably mean jft wide left, pinching in, to allow for the marauding fabian. donovan wide right and jozy up top.

herc gonna get a start tomorrow tucked in behind jozy while junior marshalls from the defensive mid, and partners with who? this telling bit will show how coach klinsmann rates beckerman to edu and jones.

to me, you play beckerman versus scotland and jones versus brasil, then both in the canada game, and the winner gets anguia.

dikranovich - I think you're right with a few caveats. Back four is decided.

Jozy should obviously be the preferred striker, but he doesn't get to camp until Sunday or Monday, so we'll need someone else to play that role against Scotland. Don't know if it'll be Boyd who's a natural target and Klinsi likes, or someone like Gomez or Wondo who are the proven goal scorers.

If there were a left midfielder in camp, I'd pick Torres to sit behind the striker in Dempsey's role, but I don't see one, so I'll agree with you that Torres plays out left with Johnson marauding (I like that word) up the wing.

I also think Edu is ahead of Beckerman on the depth chart, so I'd say Edu against Scotland and Jones against Brazil.

shoot, jozy aint gonna be there for the game against the scots, that sucks i say we start boyd and see what he is made of. gomez will be nice playing what essentially will be a 4-4-2, but maybe more 4-5-1 on defense.

what would be really nice is to see this team build some real chemistry over the next three games, going into the first qualifier.

usa needs to be all business starting with the anguilla game and ending in brasil 2014. no fing around. this is where people need to start really getting serious and this needs to be a real community effort.

"Twice this week JK talked about him as best LB in Bundesliga last half of season."

Erm, if Klinsi said that, then he is having a complete and utter laugh. This may have been an unusually weak sauce season for left backs in the Bundesliga, but nobody could compare to Schalke's Christian Fuchs over the back half of the season. Then, you have guys like Schmelzer, Daems and Alaba.

So yeeeeeeeah... no. And frankly, I cannot imagine what type of brain tumor would make anyone want to remove Johnson - truthfully one of our best wing attackers in any possible squad - from a wing corps missing Donovan and Shea to plonk him back in defense. It's beyond baffling to me.

greg, thats your response, to try and defuse what the coach said about johnson. now its all one big joke. please be a man and admit you were wrong about johnson, because now, you are just embarassing yourself.

ok, fair enough greg, so lets talk it out. castillo is a left back, sort of, but no way on earth he could have contained the italian attack the way johnson did. are you telling me that with your vast soccer knowledge, you cant see that?

coach klinsmann is lucky he does not have to cover his tracks, because the club coach at hoffenheim has done that for him by playing johnson exclusively in defense during the second half of the season.

thats the funny thing about soccer in america. everyone is so keen to get their point across, and sometimes it seems like it can be at the expense of the greater good.

"ok, fair enough greg, so lets talk it out. castillo is a left back, sort of, but no way on earth he could have contained the italian attack the way johnson did. are you telling me that with your vast soccer knowledge, you cant see that?"

For starters, Castillo IS a left back. Period.

Secondly, Johnson did not "contain the Italian attack" by any stretch of the imagination, nor would he be expected to do so.

Finally, we have no way to know what Castillo may or may not have done, so let's not pretend we do.

:coach klinsmann is lucky he does not have to cover his tracks, because the club coach at hoffenheim has done that for him by playing johnson exclusively in defense during the second half of the season."

Yeah, the Hoffenheim coach did that and the team won exactly four games the second half of the season, finally dropping out of Europa League race with a three-game losing streak to close the season.

Regardless of reality, answer me this: how does what the Hoffenheim coach does cover tracks for Kilnsi? And does that mean that Klinsi now has to do whatever club coaches do, no matter how poorly it works out for them?

"thats the funny thing about soccer in america. everyone is so keen to get their point across, and sometimes it seems like it can be at the expense of the greater good."

for an example of this problem you only need go and read tsg. they had to come down so hard on the former regime, that they actually marginalized how good michael bradley is.

and in trying to spread their gospel, they actually have people believing that players who are not even healthy and playing, that these players are the ones who can save us soccer, whether its holden or davies, or whoever.

it hurts the common cause to constantly second guess and send out a vibe that is not for the greater good. im sorry it is this way to, but it is. whether it is eric wynalda at some soccer meeting in kansas city, or chicago, or wherever the f they hold those things, or some little blogger at TSG, or sports illistrated.

lets keep talking about the team and try and work things out, and of course things are going to work themselves out on the field more than anywhere.

"for an example of this problem you only need go and read tsg. they had to come down so hard on the former regime, that they actually marginalized how good michael bradley is.

and in trying to spread their gospel, they actually have people believing that players who are not even healthy and playing, that these players are the ones who can save us soccer, whether its holden or davies, or whoever."

Great story... I have done none of these things.

In fact, I've said Bradley was going to be the essential to the USMNT central midfield **BEFORE** he started scoring all those goals at Heerenveen.

As for the "vibe" of my analysis, I'm not hear to be a cheerleader and I'm certainly not so powerful as to alter the temperature in the USMNT hothouse.

i think when you say the guy is covering his tracks, i think you mean coach klinsmann, but you could mean the hoffenheim coach, but i doubt it.

you did actually ask two questions and to the first. if you are saying coach klinsmann was covering his tracks with his comments, the point i would make is that hoffenheim has been playing johnson at left back, and in doing so coach klinsmann is given more reason to play johnson in the position.

to your second question, no, coach klinsmann does not have to do whatever club coaches do, regardless of how it works out. so at hoffenheim, when the team lost its top scorer at midseason and still found it nessasarry to put johnson in defense, that does not mean coach klinsmann has to play his player wherever you say is best.

fabian johnson is a wing back in the usa system, so to answer that question, id say fabian johnson himself will be on the wing. torres will be on the left and will pinch inside, and if his defense has improved, which seems to be the consensus, he will be a much more valuable member to the us team.

is donovan out of the game tonight?

greg, your not saying you really think castillo is a better left back than johnson, are you?

"fabian johnson is a wing back in the usa system, so to answer that question, id say fabian johnson himself will be on the wing."

Nooooooo, the two attacking wide players, stop playing dumb.

"torres will be on the left and will pinch inside, and if his defense has improved, which seems to be the consensus, he will be a much more valuable member to the us team."

Good grief.

"greg, your not saying you really think castillo is a better left back than johnson, are you?"

He IS a left back, which Johnson is not. So how about we start finding out how good he is now when the games don't count instead of destroying the integrity of the entire formation to move one player to a place he doesn't belong?

it sure seems like this would have been a good time to call in dmb. it would have been a real pleasure to see dmb and fabian johnson working the left side together.

jft has a lot to prove tonight and if he can do it from the left midfield spot, that will be highly encouraging.

its a lot of pressure to start a young player like boyd in a big game like scotland. coach klinsmann will probably like challenging the young player, give him a chance to see just how ready boyd is. its a no brainer, boyd has to be starting tonights game.

if he isnt a better defender than he is a winger, which doesnt make a whole lot of sense anyway, because the two combine to form one position, its called the wing back position. but if he isnt better now, you better bet your bottom dollar he will be better come 2014, because there will be no doubt by then. we have spoken before about all the guys that play this position, like zambrotta and roberto carlos.

greg, one line at a time does not sufficiantly cover all we have to go over. this aint no johnny cash song where im trying to get one little nugget of information at a time. come on red rider, this is the cotton mouth and psycho billy cadillac